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Powell's Staff:
Five Book Friday: In Memoriam
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Every year, the booksellers at Powell’s submit their Top Fives: their five favorite books that were released in 2023. It’s a list that, when put together, shows just how varied and interesting the book tastes of Powell’s booksellers are. I highly recommend digging into the recommendations — we would never lead you astray — but today...
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Brontez Purnell:
Powell’s Q&A: Brontez Purnell, author of ‘Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt’
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Rachael P.:
Starter Pack: Where to Begin with Ursula K. Le Guin
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Customer Comments
bob williams has commented on (6) products
Thinking Fast & Slow
by
Daniel Kahneman
bob williams
, January 30, 2013
I have reviewed this before, but will say again it is perhaps the most important book few will ever take the time to read. i fear only political marketers and ad "creative directors" will wade through what seems like a very dry read. Kahneman, with his partner, Tvarsky, is a father of freakonomics, behavioral economics, and one of the people who has helped psychology become a science; this is the distillation of that work and arms us against our continued robotization at the hands of conscious (and not so) forces that channel our attitudes and actions. The way to read it is slowly--to stop every few pages or more often and to cite in some detail examples from our own lives and what we have observed in others of what he is uncovering through very rigorous, conscientious experiments. It is a thrilling book, but I still have to break through the "defenses" of some, like my former, very excellent student who told me, "There's not enough water in Hood River to make a book this dry go down." I bought 8 copies now, 7 so far unread! I am looking for help in reading, in now re-reading it and am determined to reveal its appeal to my children, nephews, employees, etc. I do not know of a book more important for understanding ourselves. If "Know thyself" is the goal, this book is a valuable tool toward that end. (Do I have to pay people to read it?)
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Shock Doctrine the Rise of Disaster Capitalism
by
Naomi Klein
bob williams
, April 23, 2011
I have been a serious reader for more than 50 years, studied and taught philosophy and literature, and I would rank this book near or at the top of the most important books ever. Of course, it fulfills that ranking only if it gets read, much and well. Klein reveals where "the bodies are buried" in the history of US foreign policy and does it by recombining the unexceptionable facts we all know (or are reminded we once knew) in a new way, as a single intricately planned and forcefully controlled economic war on the poor, the Southern hemisphere, and those who do promising work for Progressive improvements in the life of anyone not of the "Parasite Class". There is no single book I know which will more certainly force the epiphanic recognition that we live in the belly of a terrible and, in terms of our foreign dealings, evil beast, totally under the control of apparently sociopathic men whose faces differ as they pass down their power but whose goals and methods almost never veer from the plan. Klein resists the charismatic flights that both the material and her writing powers would make easy and instead is just relentless and steady as she helps the reader study what we are no longer able to turn our eyes from.
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Matterhorn A Novel of the Vietnam War
by
Karl Marlantes
bob williams
, January 02, 2011
This book is very grueling, impressive and seems very authentic (so realistic you can taste it). To me with no direct experience, it is a terrible indictment of the officer class by one who has excellent knowledge of his subject. But with the help of the author, I discovered that the leaders in our Marine corps/army are no worse than those in industry and politics back in the civilian world; they are lazy, incompetent, selfishly ambitious and greedy in both places but seem worse at war because their bad decisions get people killed. Knowing that, for me then, makes the leaders at home here look very different--worse than I thought; they just hide their disgusting selfishness better than the officer corps since bodies don't pile up and it is easier for them to hide their human disregard and its source in their sociopathology. This book is long but compelling and very worthwhile. I could not ask for more details to "bring the war home", something we asked for in its time but which I have not found until now. It reminded me of "The Naked and the Dead" in that respect.
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Instructions
by
Levin, Adam
bob williams
, January 01, 2011
This is a great book of 1000 pages that could have gone on for many more but had to end somehow, I suppose. The ending is summary only and leaves us hanging but that does not diminish the fascinating intricacies of almost every page. It is not a book for people who hate what they might call "over thinking: but for anyone who will read every word and think about every sentence, it will make you smarter.
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Instructions
by
Levin, Adam
bob williams
, November 08, 2010
Reading this book closely--no "scanning"--will make you smarter. I wish I'd had it for students when I taught philosophy. Really. I started actively regretting the fact that it would end before I had read 30 pages, and there were at that point another 1000 pages to go. To say it is a Jewish novel would be like saying Faulkner's are Southern books--true, but still...Yet, a Yiddish/Hebrew glossary has been a help. I am only in the middle, at around page 500, and will not say yet that it is the great book I expect it to seem still at the end. But, even if it ended now, I would feel as rewarded as I just did at the end of "Super Sad True Love Story". It is complex but every bit of it is understandable by paying attention. Though not for people who don't like thinking through every possibility, and certainly not expressed in the language of any 10 year old we have ever met, the thoughts are those of a 10 year old, as close as I can remember, and the "big boy" expression is what is necessary to keep my sense of humor engaged. If David Foster Wallace had a clear and single plot--if James Joyce had cared to be perfectly understood--but what we do have is this rewarding book. I believe it will be a classic if it does not fall apart in the second half. Thanks for the use of the hall.
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Dansk Og Norsk Nationalvaerk V3: Eller Almindelig Aeldgammel Morskabslaesning (1829)
by
Knud Lyne Rahbek
bob williams
, January 20, 2010
I am 67 years old and a former philosophy professor, and I think The Shock Doctrine is one of the most important book ever written. There. I was one of those people who always tried to ascribe good motives to those in positions of authority however misguided I felt they were. How embarrassing to say this after reading this fine work. It changed my way of eveluating and hence,my life. Naomi Klein takes a wealth of facts, many of which we have heard, and puts them together in a narrative which makes them memorable and shocking in themselves when they are connected in her low key but relentless manner. The total picture which results is explanatory of American actions on the world for the last 50 years. A reader can open the book at any chapter and become outraged but also more comfortable as the underlying causes of what had seemed somewhat mysterious clarify as the story flows. But, by starting at the beginning and taking this dense work 30 or so pages at a time, Klein dispels all doubt against her thesis that all but the discrete initial, brief disaster-events themselves(and sometimes even those) have been skillfully, cynically and with premeditation orchestrated to be of financial advantage to the forces of greed. If anything might convince someone that many of our leaders are true sociopaths, it could be a careful reading of this true masterpiece.
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